Postcard hobby inspires book by former Oak Ridger reporter

Tuesday

Nov 13, 2012 at 6:41 PMNov 13, 2012 at 6:44 PM

A former Oak Ridge resident, reporter for The Oak Ridger and city Board of Education chair, has turned his postcard hobby into a new book about his quest to return treasured mementos to the families of men and women who served in World War II.

Special to The Oak Ridger

A former Oak Ridge resident, reporter for The Oak Ridger and city Board of Education chair, has turned his postcard hobby into a new book about his quest to return treasured mementos to the families of men and women who served in World War II.

Published to coincide with Veterans Day, “Postcard Memories From World War Two: Finding Lost Keepsakes 70 Years Later” is the work of John F. Schlatter. In 2003, he began collecting postcards written by soldiers during World War II. …

“Then one day it hit me,” Schlatter said. “These postcards sitting in a drawer at my house were valued mementos for some family.”

He decided to track down the soldiers or their families — and send them the 70-year-old postcards free of charge.

He has returned more than 25 postcards so far. In most cases, the soldiers have died and Schlatter returned the cards to their children.

Two of the cards were returned to the veterans who wrote them just weeks before their death.

The grateful responses from the families and the stories of the soldiers became the basis for Schlatter’s book. He learned of a sailor who sent his wife in Connecticut a humorous greeting on their anniversary; she kept the card and other mementos after the war, only to lose them in a flood in 1955.

Schlatter found the card on eBay earlier this year, tracked down the wife, now a widow in Florida, and returned the card to her nearly 70 years after she first received it.

In another story from the book, a young pilot from Maryland wrote a postcard to his little sister, who later became an Army nurse. He was killed in the Battle of the Bulge. Schlatter returned the card to one of his relatives in Montana. The family is still searching for his beautiful Welsh war bride who visited his parents in 1946 then disappeared.

If she’s still living she would be about 90.

Another chapter tells the story of a soldier who sent a postcard to his little sister in Nebraska apologizing because he forgot to send her chewing gum. He was a chaplain’s assistant in the Army and went on to become a minister.

Schlatter returned the card to the little sister, now age 80-plus and a great-grandmother, and received a letter from her.

A Knoxville native and graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Communications, Schlatter was a reporter for The Oak Ridger in 1976-79. He served on the Oak Ridge Board of Education from1983 to 1989. He retired this year after a career in corporate communications with Bechtel, a worldwide engineering and construction firm.

Schlatter began working at The Oak Ridger after serving two years as an Army officer at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. His career also included a stint as a media relations representative for the Tennessee Valley Authority.

He and his wife, Becky, live at Chippewa Lake, Mich. They have three children: Valerie Richardson, Murrells Inlet, S.C.; John M. Schlatter, Knoxville; and Kate Van Zee, Draper, Utah; and three grandsons.

The book, “Postcard Memories From World War II,” is available on Amazon.com.

The paperback version is at https://www.createspace.com/4003496 and the e-book Kindle version at www.amazon.com/dp/B009SGI15I.

Former Oak Ridger Sandra Plant was an editorial consultant on the book, according to Schlatter.

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